The Monterey Public Library Friends & Foundation serves to provide support through funding and volunteers to California’s first library, the Monterey Public Library.
The California History Room is a treasured resource for Monterey Peninsula history, encompassing and collecting stories that tell our unique story. As one of the most historic cities on the West Coast, our stories matter. The photos, documents, and books are often used by researchers, historians, authors, and the media to tell our Monterey history to local and national audiences. To protect these treasures for future generations and increase accessibility, the Library will be increasing digitization efforts to make collections available from your home. For increased visibility, the Library will add rotating displays inside the library with items from the collection. To improve access to collecting their own stories, we will also build a "Memory Lab" where we will have equipment for library members to digitize their own personal 8mm, vinyl, VHS, film, and other collections with the help of volunteers.
If you’ve ever been in the Library’s California History Room, you know what treasures it holds. To be able to access these resources from home or office will be a wonderful improvement. In addition, the development of a “Memory Lab” will truly make historians of us all, as we each have our own stories to tell and preserve.
- Kip Hudson
